Collateral Damage
by meandmyinsanity
Summary: There are people you just can't get away from no matter how hard you push and pull. There are some people and there's William Darcy. After all, age is just a number right? It doesn't mean that you actually have to grow up... One Shot. Modern P&P. M due to language in situations. And yeah... High School.


**A/N: Okay, so this, whatever the fuck it is, came to my mind friday night at a friend's party when they played that song about a teenage girl gone crazy and it evolved from there. Then there was one and a half day of writing and the wish to dedicate this harmless piece of fun to one of my best friends, whose birthday is now over for about two hours;) **

**I don't take any responsibility for anything that leaves this Lizzie's mouth. This is close to an M rating but not really. So please, all you innocent minors, shut down your laptop and go play with your barbie dolls, this is grown-up stuff;)**

**Disclaimer: So not mine, but also so not Austen. As always, the middle is the solution;)**

**Enjoy!**

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><p><strong><span>Collateral Damage<span>  
><strong>

Growing up, there are people in our lives, whose life lines are so entwined with ours, whose words and actions and stories are running like a golden thread through our own that it's hard to tell where one stops and the other begins. A living, breathing patchwork quilt of memories, emotions and the connections close proximity creates. People, you can't seem to get away from, no matter how hard you push and pull, some ties you just can't tear apart.

It can be your best friend, the girl you share your first crush and your first period with, while singing along to some Backstreet-Boys-song, or it can be your brothers and sisters from the times you slept together in tents under the chestnut tree in your backyard. Perhaps it's your Mum or Dad or even the mean blonde bitch, that follows you everywhere from Kindergarten to High School graduation like a bloodhound meant to catch you.

Or it can be that guy, who annoys you probably since that day your parents put you in the crib next to him at the tender age of two months.

It can be William Darcy.

The thing about small-towns, as cliché as that may sound, was that everyone knew in fact everyone and being part of the rich elite of a little town somewhere in Connecticut ensured a rather close-knit community of Sunday lunches and debutante balls. Therefore having William Darcy in her life was as normal, unchangeable and _unavoidable_ as it could get for Lizzie Bennet, an indisputable if vexatious status quo, considering that he was thirteen days older than her.

They were in the same playgroup as infants, shared the same preschool-class and ran in the same group of upper-middle class kids, playing cops and robbers in the fields and creeks with their Nannys running after them in utter despair, while their parents were gossiping over the fourth or fifth dry martini at ten in the morning before proceeding to champagne and salmon on toast.

Darcy was a rather quiet boy even at the age of five, more of the observing and analyzing than of the loud and rambunctious kind like little Lizzie Bennet or his cousin Fitzwilliam. It suited him, but he couldn't help but feel envious, while he sat there leaning against the trunk of a large oak tree, watching Fitzwilliam throw a screaming and laughing Lizzie in the lake in front of Pemberley Manor.

"Judging", four-year old Lizzie said with a lisp, planting herself in front of him threateningly, her hair and pale blue dress dripping wet. "You're judging me", she repeated, making a mess of the sounds in the middle, her hands on her hips, her face angrily screwed up. She tried to look intimidating, but in his eyes, she looked rather cute.

"I'm not judging you", he answered, hiding behind the indifferent mask, he'd already mastered before entering preschool.

"You're watching me", she countered, angrily pushing wet strands of hair out of her face. Her mother had put flowers in her hair this morning, but she'd thrown them out the minute she was out of her sight. "It's weird." The gap between her front teeth made her lisp even worse.

"I'm not watching you", Darcy sneered with all the self-importance induced by a self-absorbed mother and aunt. "You're a girl", he said, standing up, towering a good two inches above Lizzie. "And a Bennet", he finished. "Don't you know who I am?"

Lizzie stared at him, at his face contorted into an expression, her Dad liked to call "arrogance". She had a hard time pronouncing it and an even harder time understanding it, but it was her Dad's all time favorite word so it was part of her preschool vocabulary.

She grinned, a wide smile full with dimples and a tooth gap, her eyes twinkling mischievously. "Of course I know, who you are, duh!" She rolled her eyes, her grin becoming even wider.

"You're arrogant." She pronounced the "g" like a "k", spitting it out like the smoked salmon her mother had tried to feed her. "And boring!"

And with that she turned around, running down the hill to the river, where Ricky Fitzwilliam was waiting for her to completely ruin her best Sunday dress, leaving behind a gaping five-year old William Darcy.

This was the moment, when it technically began. The teasing, the name calling... At least for the public eye, Lizzie's and Darcy's "merry war" began that day at the river, even though one could argue that this feud had started long before, when a three-year-old William refused to let a girl play with his favorite matchbox cars. But for Lizzie it was the day, she discovered that she actually _liked_ rubbing Darcy the wrong way, that it thrilled her to make him loose that smooth mask of condescending, judging superiority (all words, she'd learned from her Dad's smart books, without fully grasping their meaning) and so it happened that just two weeks later, on a hot summer afternoon at Mary Tillingers wedding, when she was sitting behind him in the church pews, the mood struck her again.

The air was stifling, the ceremony boring for a girl, who enjoyed nothing more than cartoons and running wild outside and Lizzie in her stiff, formal dress with her white leather shoes, her hair tied with a bow, holding a bouquet of flowers in her hands, was bored out of her mind, when the collar of William Darcy's crisp, white dress shirt caught her eye.

She tugged on it. Forcefully.

He didn't react.

She stole a glance at her mother, who was occupied with eying the cut of Mary's wedding dress with scrutiny and barely concealed disdain, smiled and tugged on his hair.

He didn't react.

A little miffed at his stoicism (it had taken her days to finally spell that word right), she leaned forward, whispering "you're boring" in his ear and when he still didn't pay any attention to her, she raised her bouquet and smacked him over the head with it.

Her mother's piercing scream could be heard all over town, when she screeched Lizzie's name, pulling her up by her upper arm and she smiled smugly, when she saw Darcy's horrified, clearly not unaffected face looking at her in horror, his chant book still in hand, while his mother and Nanny where busy picking pink rose petals out of his collar and she was happily being escorted out of the stifling hot church under the scandalized eyes of Meryton's High Society.

Lizzie Bennet loved riling up William Darcy and once she'd tasted blood, she couldn't get enough. Because even as a four-year-old girl something about his prim and proper exterior irked her and so she did everything in her power to get a crease or two in his crisp dress shirt. It began with that day in the church and over the years it evolved to spit balls in class, teasing in the hallways, full-on pranks whenever she was bored and she even set his hair on fire once in eight grade, when he, as her lab partner in Advanced Chemistry, told her that science wasn't for girls. Especially Bennet-girls.

Lizzie called him a chauvinistic asshole and took the Bunsen burner to his perfectly coiffed hair – She got detention for two weeks and the memory of one thoroughly ruffled William Darcy etched into her brain.

It was bloody fun. Especially when in ninth grade Darcy's best friend Charlie Bingley, finally, _finally _asked out her twin sister Jane and they formed one awkward group of teenagers sitting around a table at Giovanni's pizza parlor with the two love birds making gooey eyes at each other.

Lizzie jokingly referred to it as a foursome and when one scandalized William Darcy called her out on her level of maturity, which, in his words, couldn't be that high when she thought making sexual innuendos was appropriate behavior at the dining table.

Lizzie smiled sweetly at that and politely asked him to please get that stick out of his ass, because it looked wickedly painful. She also proceeded to call him "Daddy" for the rest of the school year.

That summer, before their freshman year, Mr Bennet lost his job and most of his wealth, when one of his shady investment deals didn't go quite as planned.

They lost the house and moved to the other side of town into a decrepit, old house called Longbourn and word around town had it that in their despair Mr Bennet had taken to philosophizing with the Whiskey-bottle in his hand, while Mrs Bennet threw her self into panic-attack after panic-attack.

The Bennet name became a taboo in polite company, but behind sparkling martini glasses and in hushed tones, the family's downfall was the juiciest gossip to date and the local gossips' tongues ran hot with all their breaking news.

For the whole summer Lizzie was nowhere to be found and Darcy took it upon himself to inform Charlie that his relationship with the beautiful Jane Bennet was now "inappropriate" due to her family's circumstances and he advised him to severe all ties.

The normally good-natured blonde guy just laughed and told him to grow a pair and to "wake the fuck up", because this wasn't the bloody eighteenth century, before he punched him square in the face.

He didn't dare to admit it, but his archenemy's continued absence troubled him greatly. He was so used to her being there and annoying him by calling him weird names and constantly making sexual innuendos, that had him blushing and her laughing like a maniac, that not having her around was like walking around in the Twilight Zone.

Jane, who, despite his mother's and her former friends' obvious disapproval, was still part of their little group, thanks to Charlie, said that she was going through a "phase" and was "testing boundaries", but the blonde angel had also taken her first Psychology class the year before and was constantly analyzing people, so he didn't take her too seriously.

On the other hand, she also told him that the only person Lizzie was talking to at the moment was his cousin Ricky Fitzwilliam and that the two of them spent every waking moment together.

He ignored the uncomfortable feeling erupting in his chest and he didn't dare to name it. She was a girl after all. _And_ a Bennet.

Lizzie came back two weeks into the school term, making a rather dramatic entrance when she pushed open the front doors, marching in with her legs clad in black, skinny jeans, her feet in chunky Doc Martens, huge sunglasses perched up on her nose and her lips covered in black lipstick, like she owned the place.

And she probably did.

Students stood there gaping, trying to catch a glimpse of the infamous Bennet girl and Darcy swallowed rather obviously, when he saw her shut the locker door with a kick of her hips - Lizzie Bennet had grown boobs over the summer and they were rather visible in those threadbare band-t-shirts she liked to wear.

He told her to fucking burn them by lunchtime.

But Lizzie, amused by his obvious discomfort, sauntered over, hips swaying, lips smiling, bending down to where he was sitting at the "popular" table with his friends until their faces were only inches apart.

His breathing became ragged and he had a had time grasping one clear thought. Her dark eyes were sparkling, boring into his.

"Pretty boy", she purred, tugging on his tie until the knot around his neck grew uncomfortably tight. "Don't loose any sleep over what I'm wearing or _not_ wearing for that matter." She smiled wickedly, pointing at his lap. "And take care of that little problem there, _Daddy_", she mocked before marching back over to her table of smokers, social outcasts and artists, whose Queen she was even as a Freshman, leaving a gasping, spluttering and decidedly _speechless_ Darcy behind.

Lizzie Bennet was confusing. She was loud and brash and decidedly "inappropriate", she was wild and colorful and a Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle wrapped inside an enigma.

She was fascinating and William Darcy found that he actually enjoyed spending time with her as scandalous as that may sound.

They shared all their AP classes (she'd only taken AP Chemistry to bloody put it in his face) and he didn't fail to notice that she was wickedly smart and could give him a run for his money, even though she was still a girl. A _Bennet _girl of all things.

But still, it was due to her and her sister's intelligence that the two of them could continue their education at Meryton's most exclusive private school on scholarships after their family's downfall.

He got so used to her constant teasing and joking and the pranks she pulled, like that one time on Valentine's Day, when she filled his locker with hundreds of bright pink greet cards and roses, all signed with "_Love, Daddy's little girl_", that the days when she put her headphones in, gave him the brush-off and ignored everyone aside from Ricky Fitzwilliam, caught him completely off-guard.

He always turned into a moping, brooding asshole these days (his sister Georgie called it "Bennet-withdrawals", which he didn't like one bit) and he had to be careful not to piss her off too much when he was in that mood, because her revenge could be vicious.

This went on all through Sophomore year and while they weren't exactly "friends", they were more than mere acquaintances and they even danced one dance at the annual debutante ball, where Lizzie shocked the whole of Meryton's elite when she entered the ballroom on Ricky Fitzwilliam's arm, wearing the mandatory white dress and gloves together with smokey-eyes and dark red, nearly black lipstick.

He couldn't take his eyes off her.

A few weeks into their Junior year Fitzwilliam threw a back-to-school party when his parents left for the weekend and in the middle of red plastic cups and vodka-melons some kind of extraordinary genius decided to play a game of spin-the-bottle and Carol Bingley tried everything, including violence, in her power to get the bottle to land on her when Darcy had to spin it.

But it landed on Lizzie, who was the only one not impressed by Carol's attempts at blackmailing and her rather sharp claws. They got seven minutes in heaven.

"Come on, Daddy", she called, dragging a rather horrified looking Darcy over to the next closet by his tie. "Let's show them how to do this."

He had no idea what to do, this was Lizzie Bennet, who closed the door to the dimly lit closet and placed her plastic cup on of the shelves, eying him like a predator its prey.

"Uhm", he said, rubbing his neck anxiously.

"Oh, come on, pretty boy", she drawled, smiling seductively and still coming closer. "Don't be shy now."

His breathing picked up. This was Lizzie Bennet, the girl, that annoyed him since Kindergarten, who was now so close to him that he could breathe her in. _Smoke and Strawberries._

It made his head spin and sent shivers down his spine.

This was Lizzie Bennet and she was pressing her lips to his ear, one hand on his hip, the other on his shoulder. "Don't tell me you didn't dream of this", she whispered, her voice tickling his ear. "That you didn't fantasize about it."

He gulped, heard her chuckle. "Come on, Daddy", she whispered and then her lips moved from his ear over his jaw towards his lips. "Show me"

And then he tasted her. At first just a tentative nip, a lick across her bottom lip and then suddenly his lip was between her teeth,_ pulling, pushing, biting_ and he could taste the booze and the cigarettes on her tongue and it was strange and exhilarating and so irresistible that he leaned in closer to get more.

"Easy there, tiger", she chuckled, smiling into his dazed looking face, his pupils were dilated, his breathing ragged. She took his hands and placed one on her ass and the other on her right tit. "That's the way to go."

His hands closed on the offered flesh and there was only one thought running rampant in his mind. He was palming Lizzie Bennet's tit. And her ass for that matter. But the fact that he was actually touching, what he'd been fantasizing about ever since that day Freshman year, shrilled through his mind like a carousel gone wild.

A groan erupted from his chest and he dove right in, pressing her against the shelves on the other side of the room and she had barely time to breathe, because then there was his hand moving upwards, slowly crawling over the skin of her stomach, stroking over the arch of her ribcage. He pressed into her, his body flush with hers and she felt him, felt hot skin burning into hers, shooting sparks of lust throughout her body and she was lost, lost, _lost_... except for the feeling of him holding her.

But when his hand cupped her face and the heated kiss erupted into something entirely _different_, she pushed him back, staring at him in his crumpled shirt, at the mess she'd made of his hair and the dark look in his eyes.

She didn't know why she did this.

Perhaps because he actually wore jeans this evening, looking more like an actual living, breathing human being than like the uptight prep boy his bipolar mother wanted him to be. Khakis just didn't do it for her, but jeans? Well, they were hot and she rejoiced in seeing him loose control.

"Seven minutes are up", Lizzie announced and straightened her T-Shirt, still able to feel the imprint of his hand on her skin. She grabbed her cup and opened the door, making her way back to the party, leaving behind a thoroughly disheveled, thoroughly confused looking Darcy yet another time.

She set off to find Ricky. After all they'd promised to loose their virginity to each other this weekend and she wasn't about to call it off. They'd even bought candles to do the whole romantic shebang, which was rather hilarious because for the both of them it was more about finally doing _it_ than anything akin to romance.

Lizzie Bennet didn't know if she could do romance.

Fitzwilliam seemed to have been rather chatty about it though, because come Monday morning he sported a rather nice shiner and the knuckles on Darcy's right hand were conspicuously bruised.

They never talked about it. Not only because Lizzie Bennet didn't kiss and tell, but also because not two weeks later Carol Bingley was prancing around on Darcy's arm, enjoying her role as the town's golden boy's girlfriend to the fullest.

And when Lizzie didn't act like she had the urge to vomit at the mere sight of the "perfect couple", she and Caroline engaged in "friendly" banter, or at least the teachers liked to call it that.

"Did a blind man put your make-up on this morning?", Carol asked condescendingly, eying Lizzie with disdain, her nose scrunched up in a rather unflattering way, making her look like a pit bull.

"Nah, he was too busy dressing you", Lizzie threw back, while putting book after book in her locker. "I mean that combination?" She gazed at Carol's pink top and her pale yellow skirt. "I can't look at it without feeling like my eyes are bleeding." Ricky, standing next to her, chuckled.

"That's the way I feel every time I look at you", Carol retorted triumphantly, clutching Darcy's arm like it was her life line. The poor guy looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here.

Lizzie turned around in shock. "You have feelings?!", she cried out in mock surprise. "I thought you bleached them out the day your hairdresser sedated you with hydrogen peroxide! You know, right along with your brain cells."

"You're just jealous that you'll never be as pretty as I am", Carol squealed smugly, batting her eyelashes at Darcy, who ignored her completely.

"Yeah..." Lizzie looked thoughtful for a moment, before shaking her head vigorously. "No, can't be. It's just the surprise at discovering that you're not in fact Rosemary's baby."

"Who is Rosemary?", Carol asked dumbly, making Ricky snort with laughter.

"Don't worry, Carrie", Lizzie assured her. "It's just an interesting piece of cinematographic history. You know... _culture_."

"I know what culture is!", Carol revolted, looking at Darcy as if to prompt him to say something in her defense. He remained silent.

"Sure you do, doll", Lizzie drawled sarcastically, shutting her locker door with a bang. Ricky was still laughing, while Carol's eyes narrowed into tiny slits.

"You're a slut", she stated as if the statement could actually hurt Lizzie. She just laughed.

"Right back at 'ya", she grinned, before pressing a hand against her mouth in mock horror. "But oh right! You actually have to _have_ sex to be one, right?" She looked at Carol, who stood there with her mouth wide open. There was a faint blush on Darcy's cheeks, making her smile in amusement.

"That's the motion, sweetheart", she encouraged Carol. "Just bob your head up and down and there you have a blowjob." She clapped her hands as if to applaud for a job well done. "But the joy of sex doesn't end with oral, you know? But if you want to start there, ask your boyfriend to go down on you, that should loosen you up a little, Miss Panties-in-a-twist, because your slut-shaming complex is close to being Freudian, darling."

"I'm not a slut!" Carol was in full pouting mood. Lizzie just smiled.

"Right, baby doll, you're just sexually frustrated. Happens to the best of us, but oh – What did that little bird tell me? You're still going for that whole chastity thing?" She shook her head and looked at Darcy in heartfelt sympathy. "I hate to break it to you, pretty boy, but it seems like you won't get any action until you put a ring on it."

He just quirked an eyebrow, while Carol was tugging on his arm like a little child throwing a tantrum. Lizzie picked up her bag, dragging Ricky, who was still in stitches, with her.

"Oh, and Daddy?", she stopped next to Darcy, leaning in close so he could smell that strawberry and smoke scent emanating from her hair. "Tell Mommy dearest, she should stop buying clothes at the local candy shop. It makes me want to puke my guts out."

Two months into the school year, Lizzie and Ricky made their relationship Facebook-official. They weren't in love by any means, they'd just been friends forever and were now screwing around behind their parents' backs. It made life a lot easier when they didn't have to worry about nasty admirers and STDs.

Besides, it seemed to piss off Darcy immensely every morning Ricky shouted "Girlfriend!" as a greeting through the entire student hall and Lizzie responded with an equally enthusiastic "Boyfriend!"-outcry. And Lizzie loved nothing more in the world than annoying Darcy.

Or Carol Bingley for that matter.

She started smoking after Christmas Junior year. She did it out of boredom and because there were always cigarettes lying around in Ricky's suite of rooms, taking some of them wasn't that big of a step. She also tried pot once, but she soon realized that she wasn't really into that whole stoned and baked kind of thing.

He noticed her new obsession and the way Ricky and Lizzie stole cigarettes from behind each others ears or how she would raise her chin, a smoke between her lips, smiling mysteriously before exhaling.

Every movement of her drove him crazy since that night in the closet, since he knew what that body felt like under his fingers, what her hair smelled like, how muscles and bones and tendons moved, creating this strange creature that was Lizzie Bennet.

He even bought a packet one evening, lit a cigarette and tried to find out what exactly about pulling smoke into ones lungs appealed to her.

It took days until the scent left his room and in the nights in between he dreamed of nothing but her. Between his sheets, against that wall and on the table in their Chemistry lab. He woke up with her name on his lips, sweaty with the Egyptian cotton sheets tangled between his legs.

She was just a girl. Just a Bennet girl.

When they entered Senior year, Georgie Darcy began her Freshman year and as strange as that may sound, Carol Bingley had no chance at all in dragging little G.G. over to the dark side, because she fit right in at Lizzie Bennet's table of weirdness and the supposed Queen Bee of Meryton's High School couldn't understand for the life of it that it wasn't in fact _her_, who ruled the school, but bloody Lizzie Bennet.

Darcy didn't know if he liked that his baby sister was hanging around with stoners and artists. It was just so _inappropriate_.

But at the same time he found himself yearning for every glimpse of her, every arch of her neck, her back, her legs. He felt his mouth go dry every time she put her hair in a bun or stretched out her arms, making her shirt rise up, revealing smooth, pale skin, he wanted to taste and lick and bite.

She found him staring at her in the same manner he did when he was five years old and she was playing down by the river. Only that now, there was also a lot of sexual frustration in his eyes. Not surprising, considering that Chastity Bingley was his girlfriend. But still...

To be honest, it confused her. Annoying him had always been harmless fun to her, even kissing him had been more of a way to rile him up even more than an actual wish to touch him. Desire had never been part of the equation and having him looking at her like that whenever she showed just a slip of skin was just as exhilarating as it was disturbing.

She hadn't wanted him to want her that way.

Lizzie contemplated the thought one summer afternoon two months before graduation when sitting on the terrace facing the park of Pemberley Manor. They'd been hanging out in Georgie's room that afternoon and she'd only sneaked out for a quick smoke, when Darcy caught her sitting in one of the garden chairs, a cigarette between her lips.

"Do you like sneaking up on unsuspecting victims, Edward Cullen?", she drawled and took another drag. "One might think you want to be a vampire."

"The sun is shining", he retorted. "I think that defeats your theory."

"Bummer", she simply replied. "I really wanted to kill you with that silver cross and some garlic."

"That doesn't surprise me", he answered and the tone of his voice made her sit up.

"What are you playing at?", she asked him with narrowed eyes, the burning cigarette in her hand half forgotten.

"I'm just saying -", he stammered, but she cut him off, her expression angry and cold. "No you're not just saying", she interrupted him. "What do you mean, William Darcy?"

He gulped, this had to be the first time in years that she called him by his real name and it made him sweat in anxiety.

"It's just... I'm worried", he managed to get out. "About Georgie..."

"And why is that?", Lizzie asked, taking one last drag from her cigarette. "She's doing fine."

"I'm not so sure", he admitted. "The people she hangs out with..."

"Me", she interrupted him again and her blank expression scared the ever living shit out of him. "She's hanging out with me."

"Yeah...", he tried to get his thoughts together. "It's just - I'm worried about the influence those people can have on her and she's just so innocent and after the stunt Wickham pulled last year..."

"She's not innocent", Lizzie cut him off, blowing smoke rings. "You don't come out of being drugged and nearly raped without losing your innocence."

"She told you?!", he exclaimed dumbfounded, but she held up her hand, telling him to shut the fuck up.

"Of course she told me, idiot. I was the one to pick her up after her last breakdown. As for the influence you're talking about... Didn't you notice that she's a lot happier lately? More self-confident? She kneed Wickham's most private parts not two weeks ago, didn't you know, big brother?"

"I did", he said. "I just thought that -"

"That she was on drugs?" Lizzie laughed humorlessly at that. "Georgie doesn't do drugs. She doesn't even drink fucking champagne and you'd know that if you actually payed attention to her."

He wanted to protest, wanted to tell her that ever since the Wickham-debacle his little sister had been constantly on his mind, but she wouldn't let him.

She stood up leaning down to where he sat on the other garden chair, her dark eyes penetrating his. "So..." She came even closer and he smelled smoke. Smoke and strawberries and something so decidedly Lizzie that it tore his chest apart. "Perhaps...", she whispered. "Perhaps I'm not bad for her." She blew smoke in his face. "Because maybe, _maybe_ I'm the good guy. And you..." She stubbed out her cigarettes on his right knee, clad in meticulously ironed khaki pants. "You're just collateral damage."

She made her way back over to the house, stopping at the doorstep. "And do me a favor, pretty boy. Stop being so damn _judgmental_."

Weeks passed and she ignored him for the first time in a really long time. He didn't like it and wanted to tell her that he'd been sitting outside that afternoon until it got dark, that he was sorry for insulting her, for implying anything, that he was grateful that she cared for his sister.

And that perhaps, just _perhaps_ he loved her.

But that wasn't exactly a topic for small talk.

Graduation came and went. Darcy broke up with Carol but agreed to still be her date for Prom. It was better than sitting around the whole evening, watching Ricky and Lizzie dance song after song. And therefore it came as a surprise when Prom came about and Lizzie Bennet entered the ballroom alone, in a pale blue dress and blue lipstick.

He watched her, wondering where Ricky was, because he didn't know that they had split up amicably a week ago and that his cousin was now backpacking through Europe.

He didn't know that she'd chosen the dress, because it reminded her of that day by the river when she told him that he was boring.

He didn't know that she'd hoped that the rumors were true and that the golden couple had indeed split up.

He didn't know that it sent a dagger right through her chest when she saw his hands around Carol's waist. Swaying. Back and forth and back and forth.

After all, there were a lot of things William Darcy didn't know.

He saw her laughing with her friends, joking around with her teachers, but at some point between two songs she just disappeared and it worried and pained and all about drove him crazy that she could just do that.

Disappear.

She called him at three in the morning, shouting, yelling, _crying_ that her baby sister didn't come home that night, that she'd been involved with Wickham and that she'd been wandering about town for an hour with no trace of them.

He didn't even think about it, was in the car even before the phone call ended, speeding through Meryton's empty streets until he came to a stop in front of the Bennet's ramshackle house.

She still wore her dress, but had changed into sneakers and thrown on a sweatshirt with the words "_I like to eat fairytales_" on the back and she couldn't suppress the feeling of relief coursing through her veins, when she saw his face with the hard lines in the pale light of the car's interior lamps.

"She must be gone for at least five or six hours at this point", she said in lieu of a greeting. She had no idea what to say to him anyway._ Thank you, I'm sorry, I like you_ all didn't seem to grasp it.

"I know where to find them", he simply said and for the first time since discovering Lydia's absence she felt hope.

"My parents aren't home", she began rambling when they we're on the Highway, racing through the dark to catch the runaways. "Therapy sessions in Hartford, you know?"

He didn't know.  
>"Mary was supposed to watch the younger ones, but some Doctor-Who-episode distracted her and Lydia was able to sneak out with Kitty's help and -" She paused, catching her breath.<p>

"You don't have to explain", he said, trying to reassure her. Seeing her anxious and nervous and all about _not_ confident made his head spin.

"But of course", she insisted, biting her fingernails. "I mean, you probably had plans with your girlfriend, right? A bit cliché, but loosing your virginity on Prom Night seems the way to go these days."

"It isn't." He rubbed his eyes tiredly. "We broke up weeks ago. I didn't have any plans with her tonight."

"Oh." She was quiet after that. Just stared out of the window as the black tinted scenery flew by. "Ricky and I broke up, too", she said after some time. "And I quit smoking two weeks ago."

"That's..." He had no idea what to say, too caught up in her first admission and so he decided to take the easy way out. "Smart", he said. "That's smart."

"Yeah", she said. "It's surprisingly easy."

They found Lydia in a hotel room in down town Harford, crying next to a passed out cold Johnny Wickham. He didn't even manage to pull down his pants before his own drug cocktail overwhelmed him. They took photos of his naked butt and put them on Facebook the moment they'd excited the building, there was no way his parents wouldn't get wind of it and not disinherit him.

Public humiliation was a force to be reckoned with.

Lydia was scared, but unharmed and so exhausted that she fell asleep the moment the car was rolling again.

"I'm sorry", Lizzie said after a while. "For being a hypocrite."

"It's okay", he said and there was this strange, warm feeling in his chest again, when he realized that he was currently having a somewhat normal conversation with Lizzie bloody Bennet.

"No, it's not", she disagreed. "I lectured you about not being involved in your sister's life and here I am and I had no idea that she was even involved with that asshat and-"  
>"Okay, stop", he laughed. "I think I liked you better as a hypocrite. You were less guilt-ridden then."<p>

Stunned silence. "Wait!", she cried out and turned to him with her mouth wide open. "You _liked_ me?"

He gulped, stared at the street. "I...uh..I just...Never mind", he finally said, waiting for her to turn it into some kind of joke. But she didn't and the rest of the car ride passed in silence.

"I'll miss you", she suddenly said when they entered the street leading to her house.

"I'm not going anywhere", he answered, confused and thrilled at the same time at her admission.

"But you're going to college, right?", she asked, her head resting against the window pane.

"You're going, too", he stated, halting the car in front of her house and the lights went on. She blinked at him, startled to see him dressed so casually in just his pajamas and a white T-Shirt and she had the sudden urge to throw herself at him.

"Yeah, but you're sure going to some fancy Ivy League thing, right?" She made awkward motions with her hands and in the harsh light of the interior lamp he saw that the blue lipstick on her lips had faded. They were of a pale red now and he felt himself reminded of that night in the closet.

"Actually, I decided to stay a bit closer to home", he answered and when she didn't answer right away, he continued. "I always liked New York."

"You're going to New York?" She nearly choked on the word and she had no idea why. Staring into the dark outside of the car, she heard Lydia's soft snoring and her own erratic heartbeat. "It's just...", she began and then - "Never mind, I-"

"Lizzie", he said softly, gazing at her. She looked young in the pale light. _Vulnerable_.

"I have to go", she said, hastily picking up Lydia's flower bouquet. "Mary and Kitty are worried and Jane -"

"Lizzie", he interrupted her again. "Why did you call me?"

She stilled. Frozen in her movements. "I don't know", she whispered after a while, furrowing her brow, looking anywhere but at him. "I just... you were the first person to come to mind and I just... I...I wanted to see you."

Silence. Erratically beating, gut wrenching silence.

And then she lifted her skirt, climbed over the middle console and straddled his thighs. He didn't dare to breathe in fear of waking up, sweaty and with his Egyptian cotton sheets tangled between his legs.

"Hi", she whispered, smiling that secretive, seductive Lizzie smile, that nearly had him undone and he tried not to think about the fact that her thighs were bare under that dress and that she was pressing against him _right there_, when he placed his hands on her hips, relishing at the contact.

"Hi", he breathed and it was like coming home, like breaking through the water's surface, was like living, breathing, daring and fighting. This was desire.

And the promise of something more.

"You wore slacks", she finally said and Darcy, so caught up in the sensation of having a girl on his lap and not just any girl, but Lizzie bloody Bennet, looked at her in confusion. "You were five and you wore slacks and dress shirts and bow ties and I mean, who the fuck wears bow ties at five?"

"Is there a point to that rant?", he asked, quirking an eyebrow and these faint traces of dry humor made her smile even brighter.

"Yes", she whispered. "There's a point. You were five and you were always so perfect that it drove me crazy and you were always looking at me like I was something the cat dragged in." She shook her head and that smoke and strawberry scent overwhelmed him again.

"I thought you were fascinating", he whispered back. "You were so alive, not giving a shit what everyone else thought. I admired that."

"You did?" She smiled and her fingertips brushed over his collar bone, traveling upwards to his jaw.

He gulped. "Yeah..."

"I thought you hated me."

"I thought the same", he admitted sheepishly, making her laugh and the motion caused her to move against him, rubbing him exactly the right way.

He groaned. "_Lizzie_... Lizzie, you're killing me here."

She laughed, that deep, throaty laugh, that always woke him up at night, rolling her hips deliberately this time, making him hiss at the sensation.

"That's the plan", she said. "Crosses or garlic or sexual frustration, it's all the same."

"You're cruel", he said before pulling her down to finally, _finally_ after over a year of yearning and wanting and failing kiss her again. She still tasted the same and he couldn't help, but press her against him, sinking and falling and loosing himself, nipping and teasing and licking and tasting.

Tasting...

He was still in a daze when she pulled back. He opened his eyes to see her smiling mischievously at him.

"Hey, Darcy", she whispered and it wasn't awkward, or strange or uncomfortable that his hands were traveling under fabric and that she was grinding down on him without feeling self-conscious.

An indisputable status quo.

"Yeah", he said a bit huskily and she leaned in, pressing her lips against his ear.

"Can I still call you Daddy?"

* * *

><p><strong>AN: So yeah... There's that... I hope you enjoyed it. I'm going to bed now, I death fucking tired.  
><strong>


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